City Sandwich

City sandwich

(Filed: 22/12/2005)

Our must read guide to who's up and who's down, big City action and what's coming up

Movers&Shakers

• Janet Gaymer, the senior partner with law firm Simmons & Simmons, has been made Commissioner for Public Appointments.

The prestigious appointment is made by the Queen, independent of the Government.

The commissioner's role is to regulate, monitor, report and advise on appointments made by UK ministers and the National Assembly for Wales to the boards of around 900 national and regional bodies.

• Alan Bird, deputy treasurer for global markets at HSBC, and Andrew Hudis, managing director of fixed income, currency and commodities at Goldman Sachs, have joined the board of Liffe as non-executive directors associated with the market.

• Time Warner has promoted Jeff Bewkes to president and chief operating officer, making him number two to chief executive Dick Parsons.

Bewkes said: "I believe no company is better positioned to succeed in the digital arena than Time Warner."

Don Logan, chairman of Time Warner's media and communications group, will retire at the end of the year to become non-executive chairman of Time Warner Cable.

• BNB Recruitment Solutions has appointed Krista Walochick to its board.

Walochick is chief executive of the headhunter's subsidiary business Norman Broadbent.

• Ian Much, an executive director with De La Rue until last year, has been made a non-executive director of engineering firm Senior. Much is a former non-executive director of Manchester United.

DepartureLounge

• Michael Miller, Fitness First's global head of legal and human resources, has left the world's largest chain of health clubs to join law firm Halliwells as a partner.

• Matthew Readings has parted with lawyers Lovells to join the global anti-trust group of Shearman & Sterling as a partner.

• Intellectual property company IP2IPO Group has moved David Norwood to executive chairman, making Alan Aubrey chief executive.

HotShot

Zahra Pabani

Pabani, 33, heads up the family team at Shakespeares law firm in Birmingham, dealing with high net worth individuals' divorces.

She hopes to become a partner next year and already chairs a family law association of lawyers and family justice professionals for the West Midlands.

"Marketing is key," she says. "You can't expect the work to fall on your lap. You have to create a profile to let people know what you are about and how you do your work."

DealMaker

• US private equity giant Thomas H Lee is losing its eponymous founding partner, one of the biggest names in the world of buyouts.

Thomas Lee is understood to be planning the launch of a rival multi-billion dollar fund.

Lee has witnessed an explosion in the private equity industry in recent years, although Thomas H Lee shared the pain caused by the collapse of Refco.

The firm invested $500m in Refco in 2004. The commodities trader collapsed earlier this year amid allegations of fraud.

Lee is expected to reveal details of his plans in the next few weeks.

• The Swiss government imposed strict limits yesterday on any new venture abroad by the country's main telecoms operator, Swisscom, which had been courting Ireland's Eircom.

Potential acquisitions will be restricted to companies that do not have a "universal service obligation" in their home market, and must enhance Swisscom's activities in Switzerland.

Swisscom's talks with Eircom about a possible takeover were suspended last month.

• UK car dealer Lookers claims it has made good progress with potential financial backers over a possible counter bid for rival Reg Vardy.

Vardy has already agreed a £450m deal with car dealer Pendragon.

But Lookers appears confident it can raise the funding to knock out Pendragon's offer.

Lookers added: "The directors believe that the combination of Vardy and Lookers would represent a compelling strategic fit based on a shared culture and approach and complementary geographic and manufacturer fit."

Pendragon recently raised its offer to 800p per share from an unsolicited 750p approach last month.

The deal, which values Micromuse at $10 a share, is subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals.

TheDayAhead

ResultsWilson Bowden issues a trading statement today. The housebuilder is expected to include a comment on its perception of the UK housing market. The firm has recently built a £1billion programme of new schemes.

Meetings9.30am: Wyevale Garden Centres hosts its controversial egm, when activist investor Laxey Partners will push to remove board members having forced chairman David Williams out last month. Both sides say the vote will be very close. At Grange City Hotel, 8-12 Cooper's Row, London.

Stream Group and TEG Environmental both host meetings.

TVRussian Godfathers (9pm, BBC2) Yuri Mikhailovich Luzkhov, the mayor of Moscow, is the last elected opposition to Vladimir Putin.

MagicMarquee

Bentley: the British motor for Bond, Barnato and the Square Mile's bonus brigade

It's election year and a battle for control of one of the world's great cities unfolds.Christmas is a time for giving and City bankers and brokers weighed down with eye-watering bonuses must remember that special person in their lives.

But what should one buy oneself by way of a treat?

A traditional way of parting with large amounts of cash is to throw it at spanking set of wheels. And when it comes to British motoring class, a Bentley is hard to beat.

Not convinced? Then dip into Bentley: a motoring miscellany by Nicholas Foulkes (Quadrille Publishing), a mine of random information on a marvellous marque.

Refreshingly, 'how a turbocharger works' gets a paragraph while 007 gets two whole pages. In Ian Fleming's novels, James Bond drove a Bentley in Casino Royale, Moonraker, On Her Majesty's Secret Service and, memorably, in Thunderball:

"She went like a bird and a bomb and Bond loved her more than all the women at present in his life rolled if that were feasible, together."

James would have little trouble fitting in with the boys on the average trading floor.

Then there are Captain Woolf Barnato's instructions for Bentley's 1929 post-Le Mans party at Ardedrun, near Lingfield:

"This evening takes place over a course consisting of supper, dancing and fair drinking, commencing at 10pm on Saturday until 6am on Sunday. Any competitors still drinking or dancing after that hour will be dragged off the course."

Another gem appears on the book's inside dust cover - the £9.99 price tag. Cheap enough for those City workers who see the mere functioning of the Northern Line as a bonus for the year, to dream a little flicking through its pages.